This week in Michigan history: State's last stagecoach robbery is committed

August 25, 2013

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Michigan’s last stagecoach robbery, courtesy of Reimund Holzhey, occurred on Aug. 26, 1889, in the far western reaches of the Upper Peninsula.

Holzhey worked as a nature guide at a resort in Gogebic County that was adored by rich Chicago and Milwaukee residents, especially those who loved fishing.

Armed with two revolvers, Holzhey held up the wagon taking two bankers, Donald Macarcher of Minneapolis and Adolph Fleischbein of Belleville, Ill., from the train station to the hotel, saying, “I’m collectin.’ Donate!”

Macarcher, who was also packing, tried unsuccessfully to shoot the robber. Holzhey shot Macarcher in the roof of his mouth and Fleischbein in the stomach. The former lived and the latter died.

The 23-year-old made off with a $10 gold piece, a $5 bill, a pocketbook and a gold watch from Fleischbein and went on the lam.

A total of $5,000 in reward money was offered, including $1,000 from the railroad, which also hired the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency to track down the fugitive. A few days later, a retired Marquette police officer pieced together who the stranger he met in Republic, Marquette County, actually was. (He ultimately got $3,000 of the reward money.)

Almost three months to the day after the robbery, Holzhey was found guilty and ordered to serve two life sentences at Marquette State Prison, where he’d go on to work as a librarian and editor of the prison newspaper.

After a quarter of a century in prison — and a brain operation that turned him rather docile — he was paroled.

Changing his name to Carl Paul, he worked as a photographer in Marquette and as a guide at the exclusive Huron Mountain Club in the U.P. before retiring to Ft. Myers, Fla.